Welcome IATEFLers to the decade of the ‘Teens’...and what an icy one it has already proven to be! Hopefully, our publications will continue to warm your hearts a bit, and keep you up-to-date with the latest news from IATEFL Poland. In this month’s edition, we have a special forum discussion topic for you; a prize competition; a couple of pleas; and, from the British Council - a memorable February story, ingrained in world history! Please read on...

It is usual for presenters when preparing to present at a Conference to submit their transcripts for publication after the Conference. We at IATEFL are no exception to that rule, and yet, I have received very few presentation transcripts from the last Conference. Your words of wisdom should reach a wider audience than the one attending your workshops /plenaries at Poznań, so please submit your transcripts to me, asap. They will duly be published in future Newsletters (paper version), and the more presentations I have to choose from, then the quality of the Newsletter will be duly enhanced. It is not too late to send them, and I am sure many of you still have those drafts on your PCs. Please e-mail them onto:- foxypeter@hotmail.com (using Word for Windows, please, for the attachments).

A colleague of mine has asked if IATEFL has some American/Polish couples amongst its membership... married or unmarried! She is conducting some research into similarities and differences in American and Polish culture in terms of cultural identity, stereotypes, and gender roles. So far, she has come across several couples who have actually divorced, so it seems cultural differences may be having a bigger impact in relationships than we would think! Relationships involving Polish females have been more successful (I knew Polish women were wonderful!), but Joanna, who comes into that category herself, has not completed her studies, and needs to interview more couples yet. Her thesis is intended for the University of Warsaw, where she is based, so if you can help her, please write to:- joanna.jasinska@acn.waw.pl

***At a future stage, we may well interview Joanna herself, for fuller details of her research findings, and publish them in the Newsletter (paper version). Most of her interviewees have been teachers, so you may well be very interested in what she says!

We would like to make this publication more interactive, and hear more of your views, more often, so here is the first in a series of forum discussions. Do respond to the topics raised, and write to me asap at:- newsletter@iatefl.org.pl. The best comments received will appear in the next e-bulletin, along with the main overall arguments/verdicts expressed.

Forum Topic No. 1: ‘ELT Workshops Presented In Polish’

There seems to have been a noticeable trend in the last couple of years for ELT Workshops to be presented in Polish. This not only often excludes Native-Speakers from attending, but brings into question the standards of Polish teachers of English. For, if they need workshops to be conducted in Polish, is their English too poor for them to be effective teachers of English?

The editor of a well-known ELT publication available in the shops, once justified to me, the high number of articles within it being in Polish, by saying:- “it helps the weak teachers of English.” Does it?! How? If they never practise their English skills outside the classroom, how will they ever improve their level of English?

I am intrigued. There must be some arguments in favour of having ELT presentations and workshops in Polish, but I fail to see them. Perhaps you can help. Write and let me know what are the advantages for Polish teachers of English to receive workshops in their native tongue. If you agree with me, let me know your perspectives, too. Presenters themselves, have told me that it’s easier for them to present ELT workshops in English, as they can focus on the one language, and not have to switch between the two all the time. So, what is the sense of having ELT workshops conducted in Polish?

Let’s have a lively forum discussion and find out what IATEFL members, admittedly mainly Polish, think about this topic.

‘INTERCULTURAL AWARENESS IN BUSINESS’
April 21st-23rd, 2010
at Poznań University of Technology

The team that brought you IATEFL Poland’s 2009 Conference are busy again! Yes, folks, they are organising another methodological delight for you at their splendid venue. The Department of Foreign Languages aim to present a Conference with two main strands: a) Intercultural Communication in Language Teaching, and b) Intercultural Communication in Business. They hope to attract a gathering of teachers, researchers, and practitioners in the field of Language and Culture Teaching Methodology for a weekend involving a sharing of ideas, views, and experiences.

Key speakers will include:- Jeremy Comfort, a specialist in intercultural training; author of ‘Business Across Cultures’ (Falcon Press); and responsible for a Business Skills series for OUP... and Professor Sławomir J. Magala, Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Journal of Organisational Change Management’; a writer/translator; who holds a Chair in Cross-Cultural Management at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Jens Ocksen, CEO of Volkswagen, Poznań, is the latest speaker to be booked, and other major speakers will shortly be announced. Go to our main website (home page) for further details and registration information.

The team, as always, will be providing some exciting social activities and evening events to help delegates savour the joys of Poznań, relax, and make new friends. An event not to be missed!

On the Sunday morning of the Poznań Conference, 2009, Grzegorz Śpiewak presented a light-hearted, interesting plenary entitled: ‘English: alive AND Kicking?’ Here’s a quick test to see how well you can remember the content of Grzegorz’s presentation, which was based upon new language items.

Five definitions - supply the relevant word or phrase:

1. the period of our lives when we are free from serious illness. __________
2. time to relax and do exactly what you want/enjoy. __________
3. surgery on a person’s vocal chords to make them sound younger. __________
4. those who tend to follow popular trends and base their opinions on what everyone else is saying. __________
5. message asking you to click on a link to a web page and confirm your personal information. __________

Explain the following terms:

1. Digital Native
2. Shopgrifting
3. Dental Spas
4. Thumb Generation
5. Wardrobe Malfunction

Send your answers to: newsletter@iatefl.org.pl ...and the person with the best set of answers will win a special prize to be presented at the 2010 Conference in Bydgoszcz!

IN HISTORY: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (14 February 1929)

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the shooting of seven people as part of a conflict between criminal gangs in Chicago on February 14, 1929. Although it was not a major event, it received nationwide media attention.

Seven members of Bugs Moran's gang, and an ophthalmologist who happened to be in the wrong place, were lined up against a wall in the garage of the S-M-C Cartage Company in Chicago and shot by five members of Al Capone's gang dressed as policemen. When one of the dying men, Frank "Tight Lips" Gusenberg, was asked who shot him, he replied, "Nobody shot me." Capone was conveniently on vacation in Florida at the time.

The massacre was a result of a plan devised by Jack 'Machine Gun' McGurn, on behalf of Al Capone, to kill George 'Bugs' Moran. McGurn assembled a team of six men, led by Fred Burke, and intended to have Moran lured into an ambush. Moran and his men would be tricked into visiting a warehouse on Clark Street on the pretext of buying some bargain hijacked whiskey; Burke's team would then enter the building disguised as policemen and kill them. The chief suspects, McGurn and Capone, would be well away from the scene.

The plan did not work. Five men of the Burke team drove up to the warehouse in a stolen police car at around 10:30, three dressed in police uniforms and two in ordinary clothes. They found seven members of Moran's gang but not Moran himself. The gang members were told to line up against the back wall, and were then shot. Moran had been approaching the warehouse but the premature arrival of the police car scared him away. The dead men were James Clark, Frank and Pete Gusenberg, Adam Heyer, Johnny May, Reinhardt Schwimmer, and Al Weinshank.

When the garage, which stood at 2122 N. Clark Street, was demolished in 1967, the wall was sold and shipped brick by brick to George Patey, a Canadian businessman, who rebuilt it in the men's restroom of a bar with a Roaring 20s theme. After the bar closed, Patey began trying to sell the bricks as souvenirs.

This article comes from Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License

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